Earlham graduates are leaders in a variety of fields — from science, to business, to international affairs, to the arts. Our alumni include a Nobel laureate and winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship and Golden Globe Award. Others are leading scientific researchers and executives at Fortune 500 companies. They also include diplomats, doctors, teachers and activists — and most credit Earlham for shaping their world views and preparing them for diverse and dynamic careers.
Sciences
Ken Edgett '87, Principal Investigator, MAHLI Hand Lens Imager, NASA Curiosity Rover
Howard Federoff ’74, leading researcher into Alzheimer’s disease, Georgetown University School of Medicine
Margaret Heafield Hamilton ’58, helped design computer systems for NASA’s Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs
Richard Nakamura ’68, Director of the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Scientific Review
Polly Penhale ’70, Acting Head, Office of Polar Environment, Health and Safety, National Science Foundation
Drew Ramsey ’96, co-author of The Happiness Diet, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
David Wagner ’52, pioneer in the field of emergency medicine
Arts and Letters
Liza Donnelly ’77, cartoonist, The New Yorker
Michael C. Hall ’93, Golden Globe Award-winning actor (Six Feet Under, Dexter)
Robert Hirsch ’71, former chief hydrologist, United States Geological Survey
Maurice Manning ’88, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Winner of Yale Younger Poets Award
Bebe Miller ’71, MacArthur Fellow and choreographer
Josh Penn ’06, Oscar-nominated film producer, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Laura Sessions Stepp ’73, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Our Last Best Shot: Guiding Our Children Through Early Adolescence and Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both
Politics and World Affairs
Priscilla Hayner ’85, co-founder of the International Center for Transitional Justice, and a leading proponent for “truth commissions” in areas of crisis
David Shear '75, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, and former Ambassador to Vietnam
Frances Moore Lappe ’66, Author of Diet for a Small Planet and EcoMind
Daniel Hernandez Joseph ’81, Mexican Ambassador to Greece, Cyprus and Moldova
Business and Industry
Tom Gottschalk ’64, former chief legal counsel, General Motors
John Loose ’64, former CEO, Corning, Inc.
Melissa Lamson ’91, president and CEO, Lamson Consulting
Rob Stroebel ’94, president, Lithko Contracting